1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to electronically indicating the size of a fish in a net using an electrical transducer responsive to weight of a fish and electronics to convert fish weight into a display of weight, length and/or girth allowing a person to rapidly obtain the fish size with minimal trauma to a fish.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Scales for weighing fish have been commonly used incorporating both mechanical and electronic methods. The mechanical methods have used springs and levers, either portable or incorporated into fishing nets. U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,129,469; 2,633,351; 3,082,561; 3,803,742;
4,765,420; and 4,785,897 have mechanical weighing devices attached to fish nets. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,077,237 and 4,631,851 use mechanical weight and length measuring devices attached to fish nets involving manipulation of the fish or net. Portable electronic scales using capacitance, springs attached to a variable resistor, and strain gages are described respectively in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,936,399; 5,031,710; and 4,660,666. The 4,660,666 patent references prior art of scales using strain gages.
Many United States' state and federal fishing regulations place a restriction on fish size related to length so the anglers must be aware of the length to decide if the fish can be legally retained.
It is difficult to measure two parameters such as weight and length simultaneously with any single mechanical apparatus. Furthermore, it is difficult to design a suitable mechanical apparatus that can convert a measured fish parameter such as weight to a desired displayed parameter such as length where the conversion is complex or non-linear, and allow for the selective adjustment of conversion parameters for different fish body types, condition factors, or species.
Mechanical measuring devices attached to nets may generate noise because they contain moving parts such as levers and springs. Audible noise may frighten fish that is undesirable in many fishing situations where a hand-held landing net may be used.
All the prior art electronic apparatus patents describe remote devices that require appreciable time for the fish to be handled and measured while out of the water. With these prior art devices the fish must be released from a hook, then handled out of the water, and placed on another hook or similar device for electronic weighing, and then handled again to determine the length of the fish. This process generally requires two hands. This delay and trauma while handling the fish reduces the chance for fish survival if the fish must legally be released in the wild or if it is desired to be release the fish alive for science or fish farming.
None of the prior art patents addresses protection of the fish from handling injury or expresses the objective of allowing rapid measurement of fish size parameters with the intent of releasing the fish alive with minimum handling and trauma as is one of the objectives of the present invention.
None of the prior art patents describes a hand-held fish net with a built-in electronic scale for measuring and displaying fish weight.
None of the prior art patents describes a method and/or apparatus which electronically measures the weight of a fish in a net and then converts the measured weight into a display of selected fish size parameters such as weight, length, and/or girth.